The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released its latest multi-year strategic plan, with an emphasis on cybersecurity and how technology figures in to broad goals for the United States.
Every four years, GAO publishes a strategic guide for its work to help lawmakers in Congress oversee Federal operations and address governmental and societal issues over a five-year period. In its latest plan, GAO outlines key efforts for 2022-2027; goals and objectives for serving Congress and the nation; and trends that are affecting government and society, while also detailing how technology plays a role in these efforts.
The strategic plan features a Key Efforts component including details of GAO’s near-term priorities for Congress with timely and fact-based analysis of the most pressing issues facing the United States. It also includes 12 trend papers, which describe factors that can impact the future domestic and global context for GAO’s work.
The plan’s four goals, along with associated key efforts, include:
- Address current and emerging challenges to the well-being and financial security of the American people;
- Help Congress respond to changing security threats and the challenges of global independence;
- Help transform the Federal government to address national challenges; and
- Maximize the value of GAO by enabling quality, timely service to Congress and through being a leading practice Federal agency.
Under the second goal, Strategic Objective 2.5 is to “ensure the cybersecurity of the nation.” It contains Performance Goal 2.5.1 which aims to “assess efforts to establish a comprehensive national and global cybersecurity strategy and perform effective oversight.” Key efforts for this performance goal include the Office of the National Cyber Director overseeing the execution of the national cybersecurity strategy, and identifying best practices in cloud IT cyber, acquisition, and human capital management.
Additional performance goals under this strategic objective include assessing efforts to:
- Secure Federal systems and information;
- Protect the nation’s critical infrastructure from cyber threats and timely response to incidents; and
- Protect privacy and sensitive data.
The report also includes cybersecurity risks and programs included in other key efforts for various organizations.
“For GAO, the Key Efforts reflect work the agency expects to cover during this period and congressional priorities,” wrote GAO. “GAO maintains an overarching internal process which regularly assesses its priorities and establishes work in consultation with the Congress and consistent with our Congressional Protocols.”
